The Atlantic Coast Conference has been fairly mediocre over the last few seasons and has disappointed preseason expectations. Since 2022, the ACC hasn't gotten more than five of its teams into the NCAA Tournament once, and the conference only secured four bids a season ago, where Duke was the only top-4 seed. Duke has been the only consistent program in terms of NCAA Tournament berths across the last few years, and it was almost laughable how lopsided the conference was in 2025-26. The Blue Devils went 19-1 in conference play and cruised to an ACC Tournament victory even without superstar Cooper Flagg. In last season's ACC/SEC Challenge, ACC teams went just 2-14 across the two days. On top of that, ACC teams lost 11 of those 14 games by double digits and 5 of those games by 20 or more points. The ACC was just 2-6 at home in the event. Now, this insider says this needs to happen for the ACC to get back to relevance.
Jon Rothstein says six ACC teams need to make NCAA Tournament to "change national perception"
College hoops insider Jon Rothstein gave his thoughts on what the ACC needs to do to change its outlook from the rest of the power conferences.
"For the conference to take steps forward and change its national perception, it needs to have at least a third of its teams hearing their names called on Selection Sunday. And that's an attainable goal in my opinion. The ACC has made several new hires in the offseason."
There are several ACC squads poised for bounce-back campaigns. Will Wade comes to NC State via McNeese State, Ryan Odom comes to Virginia via VCU, and Jai Lucas is now at Miami after departing from the Duke program. Each of these coaches brought in talented transfer classes and should take major leaps from where their respective programs sat a season ago.
At ACC Basketball Tipoff 2025, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips spoke on the switch to an 18-game conference schedule, the first time the ACC has implemented this since the 2018-19 season. He said it comes down to getting more teams in the big dance.
"What I would say is, it has brought us the ability to schedule a little differently in the nonconference, so I like where we ended up on that," Phillips said. "It also is a driver, quite candidly, about trying to get more teams in the NCAA Tournament.